IGF 2024 Open Forum #24 Peacebuilding in the age of social media

Social media platforms play a growing role in providing access to information on conflicts. Such information can be vital for peace and safety, but such information can also include content to purposely undermine peace. Disinformation campaigns or polarizing content have been part of recent conflicts.
This session aims to analyze how peacebuilding can be strengthened in the age of social media. Our panel will bring together international experts from different disciplines and perspectives, to engage with the variety of stakeholders that will be taking part in IGF such as government representatives, civil society organizations, academics, policy experts and activists. Building upon the robust meta-research findings of the International Observatory on Information and Democracy’s forthcoming global report, it will present and discuss the state-of-art of mis-and disinformation and their impact on access to reliable information and peace. It will also highlight the existing research gaps and open questions. It will then provide speakers and participants with the opportunity to discuss policy implications, drawing upon the Forum on Information and Democracy’s policy brief on “Enable Peacebuilding through Safeguarding the Integrity of the Information Space in Times of Conflict”. Speakers are encouraged to develop concrete policy solutions, encompassing measures to be undertaken by States, social media companies, civil society and researchers and engage with the audience in this aspect. The objective of the session is to contribute to international peacebuilding efforts, by facilitating a dialogue on how to leverage digital innovation for peace in a collaborative and inclusive manner.

1) How will you facilitate interaction between onsite and online speakers and attendees?
A visual presentation will be shared on the screen onsite as well as with online participants via visio-conference. It will feature a clear agenda, the name of the participants and key information about the initiative and the topic being discussed. A Q&A session will be organised allowing online participants to send questions. Selected questions will be shared orally and in writing and addressed by the speakers. Someone from our team will be dedicated to moderate online/offline interactions of this session with support and in coordination with the IGF moderator and IT team.

2) How will you design the session to ensure the best possible experience for online and onsite participants?
We will make sure that online participants can participate by submitting questions for onsite speakers and organisers to address. We will also allow questions from onsite participants, making sure the split is relatively balanced. If logistics allow, we will also share a poll with both online and offline participants to amplify engagement and create a sense of shared participation and belonging.

3) Please note any complementary online tools/platforms you plan to use to increase participation and interaction during the session.
Mentimeter or other online poll tools that can easily integrate to the visio-conference platform system used by IGF.